Case Study: Eliminating Schizophrenic 'Voices' by Healing
Prenatal Trauma
By Grant
McFetridge of The Institute for the Study of Peak States
"This
Case Study was originally published in Positive Health (PH)
magazine, Issue 138 August 2007 - www.positivehealth.com."
Abstract:
This article
briefly describes a radical, new psychological treatment
(the Silent Mind Technique™) that eliminates the most
common type of 'voices' that many schizophrenics suffer
from. The treatment also eliminates most ordinary 'mind
chatter' in healthy, average population groups.
Case Example
Dry
recital of fact and technique do not carry the emotional
impact of the suffering that the 'hearing voices' problem
causes people, nor the change that occurs when it is
eliminated. Below is a description of what happened to Gina
Chick in Australia when she used the Silent Mind
Technique™ on herself on a Peak States Therapist
training course. She wrote the following description about
a year after she underwent the treatment:
"So
you’re wondering about the silent mind process?
"Before I had the process done, the inside of my mind was
noisier than my 1988 university lodgings. Imagine about
thirty drunk students camped out in the lounge room of your
mind, yelling at each other while watching bad daytime TV,
with the stereo blaring at the same time. Oh yeah, and
they’re all chewing pizza with their mouths open.
Loudly. Imagine trying to study, work, live, love, relate
and sleep in the middle of that.
"Welcome to the first thirty-six years of my life.
"Getting to sleep was torment. I‘ve been an insomniac
since I was a small child. My mind would race, churn and
wind back, chattering to itself all the way. It would talk
itself into countless loops. I’d eventually drift
into a broken half-sleep and wake heavy, listless and
unrested.
"I am a bodyworker, and anyone in the healing arts will
tell you that being present is an important part of the
healing process. But for me being present meant hanging out
with the noisy students in their non stop party. So I
developed an ability to split the awareness of my mind and
body so my mind could chatter away to itself while my body
got on with doing the work. I am still amazed my clients
achieved any results, considering I was barely there most
of the time.
"An intensive healing search brought me to a Peak States
Therapist workshop in Jan 2006, where I underwent the
Silent Mind Technique™.
"The process worked.
"I cannot even begin to convey what it was like to lie
there with my mind echoing to a beautiful cathedral-like
silence. For the first time in my life, I could hear the
radiant emptiness of peace. I wept. ‘They’re
gone. They’re gone.’ I wept some more.
"I didn’t want to believe it at first in case it was
a cruel trick, but no matter how hard I searched the
corners of my mind, there were no voices. The students had
been evicted. All that was left were a few empty pizza
boxes.
"I walked around in wonder, listening to the silence
outside, the leaves whispering against each other, so
distinct, so clear. I reckoned if I listened long enough I
could hear the moon.
"I haven’t stopped smiling, and it was a year ago.
"The quality of my life has completely transformed. I am
unrecognizable. I sleep. Oh, goodness, how blissful is it
to say that and mean it. I sleep.
"The healing work I’ve been doing has changed
profoundly; not only have I incorporated some of the Peak
States therapy techniques, but the level of presence I
bring to each session now is solid and silent. Clients are
achieving results I couldn’t dream of a year ago.
"Thank you for the precious gift of
silence."
Background
Textbooks will tell you that schizophrenia affects roughly
1% of the total population. Although there are a number of
identifying symptoms in diagnostic manuals, researchers do
not know if the symptoms are from one disease, related
diseases, or totally unrelated causes. However, they do
know that one symptom stands out - the majority of the
people diagnosed with schizophrenia "hear voices". In fact,
many and perhaps most of the people who hear voices have no
other sign of mental incapacity. Essentially, aside from
the distraction and frustration of being forced to listen
to the equivalent of non-stop daytime soap operas, these
people are otherwise perfectly normal. In the UK, the
'Hearing Voices Network' provides support for people who
are in this situation.1
Several
Causes
Empirically, we've found that there are several unrelated
causes for the 'hearing voices' phenomenon. Surprisingly,
the most common and disruptive of the underlying mechanisms
for this problem in schizophrenics is also found in
virtually everyone2. However, it goes unrecognized in the
general population, and is simply thought of as 'thinking',
or 'mind chatter'. It can be easily noticed during
meditation as the distracting thoughts that come up as one
is trying to focus on the practice. Thus, the difference
between most people who hear 'voices' and a typical,
average person is only one of degree, not of kind. The
typical person can suppress or ignore his mind chatter - a
schizophrenic who 'hears voices' cannot.
Practical Application
In practice, we focus on eliminating the most disruptive
and common aspect of the mind chatter problem, which we
call 'autonomous' mind chatter. In our training, our
therapy students are required to heal this issue in
themselves as practice before going on for further
training. After working with well over 100 students, we
have yet to see anyone who doesn't have this issue to at
least some degree. This is very fortunate; because the
therapists can run the process on themselves and experience
the same change that their clients will have, and know from
personal experience that the theoretical model we use
actually works. When finished, the person who has used the
process finds that his or her mind is very quiet, with the
sensation that one is standing on an empty, silent stage.
Although quite noticeable at first, this silence becomes
'normal' and unnoticed, typically within a few weeks to a
few months. Meditators are particularly pleased with this
new and permanent absence of distracting thoughts.
Underlying
Prenatal Biological Mechanisms
In work done over a decade ago, we discovered that the
'autonomous' mind chatter problem was caused by a certain
type of prenatal trauma. This discovery was considered
extremely controversial and rejected by the organizations
that we contacted because they believed that schizophrenia
was caused by a strictly biochemical problem. Recently, the
field has started to change - several key studies of
schizophrenics have now also shown that the disease has its
basis in prenatal trauma.3
Although effective, our initial process for eliminating
mind chatter was difficult and time consuming to implement,
and required significant training in the people undergoing
the process. Clearly, this was not optimum for a
schizophrenic client base. About five years ago, we made
another breakthrough and came up with a far simpler and
faster technique, which worked with a single, far earlier
developmental trauma to eliminate the problem. Fortunately,
this new process can be easily used with schizophrenic
client populations.
Available
Treatment Centers
As of this writing, we have a treatment center at our main
office in British Columbia, Canada. We hope to have
therapists trained in our Silent Mind Technique™ in
the UK, Australia, Germany and Poland within the next year.
We are also pioneering a fairly radical new treatment model
- our certified therapists only charge for results, so
there is no charge if the treatment isn't successful.
About the author
Grant McFetridge is author of Peak States
of Consciousness: Theory and
Applications, and founder
of the Institute for the Study of Peak States (ISPS). His
work on the relationship between prenatal stages and
exceptional states of consciousness has resulted in new
approaches for schizophrenia, addictions, multiple
sclerosis and autistic spectrum disorders. For further
information visit www.peakstastes.com.
References
- "Hearing Voices Network" in the UK at www.hearing-voices.org.
- Verdoux H and van Os J. Psychotic symptoms in non-clinical populations and the continuum of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research 54:1-2, pp. 59-65. March 2002.
- van Os J and Selten JP. Prenatal exposure to maternal stress and subsequent schizophrenia: The May 1940 invasion of the Netherlands. British Journal of Psychiatry 172:324-326. 1998.
© Copyright 2007 by Grant McFetridge